


We Together Make A City

by CloudAtlas



Series: Promptathon 2015 [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, DJs, F/M, Musicians, One Night Stands
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-01
Updated: 2015-09-01
Packaged: 2018-04-17 05:31:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4654200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CloudAtlas/pseuds/CloudAtlas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the prompt: <i>Clint was/is a musician.</i></p><p> </p><p>"You were good," he says suddenly and she turns back to find he's dropped his hand and is staring right at her, still lying down but with his head tipped back. "It..."</p><p>He trails off.</p><p>"You really understand music. I can appreciate that."</p>
            </blockquote>





	We Together Make A City

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Happilydancing](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Happilydancing/gifts).



> A million thank yous to **geckoholic** for beta because.... I wrote sex????? Um. :/
> 
> Title from [Delays - We Together Make A City (Love Made Visible Torch Team Remix)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-p-t47SCmo) WHICH I LOVE. Also, [this mix](http://8tracks.com/otugen/take-me) by Ortgen had a pretty big effect on tone, if you want to give it a shot. Maybe not everyone's cup of tea, but eh, I have very eclectic music tastes. :P

This is what Natasha loves about her job:

The bass reverberates in her chest, so loud it's almost not sound anymore, just movement. _Everything_ moves; people swaying back and forth, strobes creating patterns behind her eyes, the music like a slow tide, pull-push. No artificial high compares.

She's been a DJ in the city for five years now, and she hasn't yet got tired of it.

Tonight was good – better than good, _amazing_ – the crowd lost in the music as much as she was. It felt like the night was eternal while taking no time at all, the beat filling her up until it was everything, washing away her thoughts and leaving only sensation in its wake. And now it's coming up to four in the morning and she's a little drunk and a lot overtired, leaving the venue via the back exit with the smell of alcohol and sweat clinging to her clothes like a well-worn jacket.

The city is quiet now, or as quiet as it ever gets, and the silence is like a blanket, wrapping her up and keeping her safe.

Natasha loves her job – loves the music, loves the _noise_ – but she also loves the silence. They go hand in hand. A lot of people forget that.

The chill outside makes a nice change from the heat of the club; there’s a breeze coming off the river and, despite being close to mid-summer, her tank top isn’t quite enough to stop her shivering. The alcohol helps though, and she tucks her hands under her arms after securing her record bag more comfortably on her shoulder (and yes, she still uses records – she has her laptop too, but nothing sounds as good as 45rpm vinyl) before turning to follow the embankment path towards the bus stop and home.

But there’s a man lying on a divider by the embankment path, staring up at the sky and twirling a cigarette between his fingers.

He looks vaguely familiar.

She turns to watch the motion of his hand, the alcohol in her system making it feel a little like her head is moving a couple of seconds faster than her body. The streetlights catch on his rings and the whites of his eyes and for a moment she’s mesmerised.

You get a lot of odd people in the city, as you would expect, and Natasha's job is such that she meets a disproportionate amount of them; alcoholics, druggies, homeless, stalkers, you name it. This guy doesn't  _look_  like he fits any of those categories, but at the same time, he's lying behind a club at four in the morning. Just because it's on a pretty busy embankment doesn't make it less weird.

But just because it’s weird doesn’t mean it’s _bad_.

Tonight has been too good for something like this to be bad, Natasha thinks.

He must know she's there – the divider is right in front of the exit, close enough to hear the snap and lock of the door, and it’s not like her boots are _quiet_ on the concrete steps – but he makes no move now she's emerged. He just keeps twirling the cigarette and Natasha loses a couple of minutes watching his hands.

They’re nice hands; capable. She can imagine them around the neck of a guitar, but isn’t quite sure why.

"Look," the guy says suddenly, pointing straight at the sky, "Cassiopeia."

"Huh?"

He broke the silence and for a moment Natasha isn’t sure what to do with that.

The man doesn't say anything more though, as if he understands how silence is important. He just keeps pointing and after a moment Natasha follows his gaze, feeling floaty. She can't see anything though, just a scattering of the few stars the light pollution and oncoming morning hasn't managed to wash out yet.

"Right," she says, confusion edging into blankness. It’s too late for being confusing. It’s too late for weird guys on marble embankment dividers. The sky is lightening and morning is on its way, though only someone who spends their nights awake would know to recognise the subtle change in blues. She turns toward the bus stop again.

"You were good," he says suddenly and she turns back to find he's dropped his hand and is staring right at her, still lying down but with his head tipped back. "It..."

He trails off.

"You really understand  _music._  I can appreciate that."

"Thanks," she replies, slightly bemused.

The silence after the club has left a sort of buzzing in her ears and the alcohol is making her feel strangely weightless. She feels like she could walk for miles, she feels like she could lie down next to him and stare at the sky until the sun comes up. He's probably a crazy person but somehow, in this light, on this night, that matters a little less than it would normally.

He smiles at her, his teeth flashing in the low light, and goes back to staring at the sky.

"Were... were you waiting for me?" Natasha asks. The option seems less worrying, tonight.

He looks back over at her. "Not you specifically," he says enigmatically, and he's back to staring at the sky and twirling his cigarette.

Everything feels distant and hyper real at the same time and for all that Natasha was ready to go home a while ago, this guy has somehow piqued her interest, with his unlit cigarette and his capable hands and non-answers.

"So what are you doing then?" she asks, rearranging her record bag on her hip. It's pulling at her shoulder, causing her tank strap to slip, and she'll have to put it down soon or at least start moving.

"Running away," the man says.

She asks, "From what?" but he doesn't answer.

After a moment the man sits up, tucking the cigarette behind his ear and turning to face her. His shirt, which fit pretty well while he was lying down, now looks nothing short of spectacular stretched across his shoulders, and Natasha has a fleeting memory of seeing this same shirt, this same back, soaked in sweat, the man so lost in the music that it seems as though nothing short of the building collapsing would have pulled him back into his head.

She lets her gaze rake over his body but now he’s sat up, she can’t quite see him; the reflected light from the river back-lighting him, making his outline wavy and indistinct. The whites of his eyes still glitter in the low light though, and they stare at each other for a moment, over-tired and drunk and bathed in orange.

And when he says, "Walk with me?" Natasha can only say, "Yes."

He doesn't say much past offering to carry her record bag (and no, no one carries her record bag. Those records are more important to her than possibly anything else she owns. And when she says this to him, he looks at her with approval, maybe even understanding) but every couple of steps his shoulder brushes hers and somehow that means more, his heat seeping through her skin and warming her better than the alcohol.

 

This is what Natasha loves about this city:

It's the kind of city that will hold you and leave you alone at the same time. And sometimes that's the best thing, the thing she loves most, because her job involves being surrounded by people, and sometimes she needs the comfort of being alone but not, the dark city like arms around her.

But tonight she's not alone.

She doesn't really look at him while they walk; he's just a movement in the corner of her eyes, keeping time with her. They don't say anything, just follow the embankment along the river, passing Natasha’s bus stop and walking on. There's something magnetic about this whole experience; past four in the morning, bathed in streetlights, wrapped in a silence broken only by the man occasionally pointing at the sky and saying things like "Polaris" and "Venus".

Stars and planets, she's realised. Maybe Cassiopeia was those stars that won against the light pollution and slowly encroaching dawn.

Natasha looks up at the sky and then across at him and as soon as he notices, he smiles at her like he's won something. She can't help but smile back.

They walk for what feels like hours – and it could have been, Natasha can't tell – but the city hasn't run out yet; the lights still glittering on the water, making rough edges sparkle and fizz even as the sky lightens above them.

They ignore the first bridge; instead crossing at the lights to re-join the embankment on the other side, his fingers brushing her wrist the only warning she needs to avoid a step hidden by dark pastel shadows. They take the underpass under the second, the darkness making it cool enough that she can feel his heat beside her stronger than ever. But when the third comes up she has to stop, the light from a passing night bus making her hair glow momentarily.

Going north and over the river, this bridge will take them into the centre. Going south and it will take her home.

The man – and tonight he doesn't need a name, not yet – the man tips his head across the bridge, his meaning clear; _I'm this way, come with me?_

Natasha tips her head in the other direction. _I'm this way. Come with me._

The pre-dawn chill is finally winning against the remaining alcohol in her system, tiredness making the breeze even more insidious. Natasha shivers slightly and briefly wonders what she’s doing. She’s stood on a bridge in boots, short shorts and an overlarge tank top, willing a man whose name she doesn’t even know to come home with her.

She wonders how far he's planning on running tonight. 

She wonders for how long she'll run with him.

He looks at her, then across the bridge to the city centre, then up at the fading stars in the rapidly lightening sky.

When he turns back to her again, his teeth flash in the gathering light; his smile saying  _yes_  so his voice doesn't need to and this time, when they turn away from the river and head south, her fingers hook around his – just the very tips, the lightest of touches – and it feels like his heat is sinking into her bones.

 

This is what Natasha loves about her home:

It’s hers and she shares it with no one.

The way they’ve walked means it’s close to sunrise when they arrive on her street – a tiny cobbled thing lined with cafes and restaurants better than what you’d expect for the area. She has to let go of his hand to dig her keys from her bag and she misses his touch almost as soon as she does. A very small part of her is wondering what she’s doing but it’s shouted down by the part of her that is still standing on the embankment, watching a man twirling a cigarette and pointing out stars.

The lock needs to be jiggled in just the right way for the door to unlock and once it’s open, the two steps up into her little entryway means she’s taller than him when she turns around to welcome him in.

She tilts her head again, but for the first time tonight, he looks unsure. Apparently the strange cocoon of silence they’ve been operating under up to now seems less of a reason to follow someone home as it did a couple of hours ago. However, in the almost-morning light, she can see the gold glint to his hair and how his capable-looking hands lead to equally capable-looking arms.

Natasha’s not quite ready to let this strange night end.

She holds her hand out to him and after a brief hesitation he grins and curls his fingers around hers. A couple of hours ago his smile was a flash of white amongst mostly indistinct shadow but now she can see how his eyes crinkle and his head tilts ever so slightly, like a dare.

That strange feeling of familiarity washes over her again but she ignores it. It’s the city talking, the latent alcohol in her blood and the way she feels drunk on the oncoming morning. It’s the way he smiles like coming home.

She wonders what he sees when he looks up at her.

She pulls him up the stairs that lead to her flat proper, carefully depositing her records on the couch before turning to where he’s standing in the doorway.

Before it was lazy, like the night was clinging to them, slowing them down so the lights danced and it felt as though they could walk forever, trapped in some never ending half-light. But now, now the sun is just, _just,_ creeping over the buildings opposite her flat and the light is filling her up; washing away the tiredness and the miles they walked together. She feels limitless, out of control in a wilder, more dangerous way than earlier.

His eyes darken slightly and he suddenly looks as though he’s vibrating with the effort of holding himself back.

The silence suited him, but this strange vibrating energy suits him _more_.

She has her mouth on him before she even properly realises, her hands scrabbling at his belt loops as he lets out a muffled gasp at the click of her tongue piercing against his teeth. And suddenly they’re not close enough, not _nearly close enough_ ; his hands skimming under her tank are brands against her skin as she drags his t-shirt over his head and pushes him towards her bedroom, their mouths not parting for more than a second at a time and then only for gasping, shuddering breaths.

As soon as they’re close enough, she pushes him down onto her bed, and she stares at him for a moment as he toes off his boots and shuffles into the centre before smirking up at her and lacing his hands behind his head. As if he’s on display, as if he’s saying _come on, do it_ – a challenge and an acceptance all at once.

His eyes huge and dark as they bore into hers.

He looks _phenomenal_ spread out on her bed sheets.

She manages to get her own boots off before he sits up and tugs her onto the bed and into his lap, her legs bracketing his hips as she pulls ineffectually at his remaining clothes, trying to get him naked. However, her efforts are hampered somewhat by him pulling off her tank and her complicated crop top thing. He looks a little stunned at the sight of her breasts – or maybe it’s the two ravens curving around her ribs – but he recovers quickly.

He traces their feathers, fingers so gentle it tickles, before grinning, devilish and – _oh god_ – like every dirty fantasy Natasha has ever had, and ducking down to take a nipple into his mouth.

Natasha loses coherency for a moment, arching into the heat of his mouth, all thoughts of getting him naked flying out of her head as he grins up at her again before deftly flipping her over and roughly pulling her shorts and boots off.

“Get the fuck down here,” she growls, and _oh_ that wasn’t what she meant, but she’s not going to complain as he moves down her body, his belt buckle a cool drag against her skin.

He pulls her towards him so he can kneel on the floor by the bed, her legs splayed, one foot on the carpet. He kisses her inner thighs, strokes callused fingers against the dark band tattooed around her upper leg while his breath is hot against her, tantalisingly close to where she wants it but just not close enough. She arches her back, wordlessly begging him to _fucking get on with it_ , but he just grins at her, kissing her thighs, navel, hip bones, anywhere but where she wants him.

“Fuck, you’re the worst,” she pants. “C’mon.”

He huffs a laugh against the crotch of her underwear and she moans, pushing her hips closer to his face even as he moves just out of reach. She swears, her hands sinking into his hair to fucking _make him_ , but he just laughs again, his fingers wrapping around her wrists and holding them down against the covers by her hips, effectively pinning her in place.

“Are you going to be good?” he rumbles, mouth so close to her centre that the heat sinks in, no trouble at all.

“Only if you fucking _do something_ ,” she pants, but she’s nodding and he releases her hands to rip her underwear away and suck _hard_ on her clit.

Natasha doesn’t scream, but it’s a close thing.

He eats her out like he dances, completely lost in the rhythm and so focused the building falling couldn’t stop him. It’s sloppy and messy and so hot she feels like she’s being filled up with the rising sun, sparks fizzing under her skin.

She comes like a blizzard under her skin but he keeps going, wringing another from her before crawling up her prone body and kissing her hard.

“You taste so fucking good,” he mutters in an awed way that suggests he means it and isn’t saying it because he thinks it’s what she wants to hear. “So fucking – ”

Natasha fuses her mouth to his again, sucking the taste of herself from his tongue, because he sort of has a point. Or maybe it’s _him_ that tastes amazing, she can’t really tell. She half sits up, her hands scrabbling at his jeans again, tugging at his belt and catching his hips with her nails as she wrenches off this jeans and underwear, flinging them across the room in her haste to get him naked. He’s so hard it looks painful and she might feel a little boneless and lethargic but she gets a hand on his dick, twisting and making him pant and swear and _writhe_ in a way she instantly finds addictive.

He almost collapses onto her, catching himself at the last moment while muttering “Fuck fuck fuck _fuck_ ,” into her neck.

“Move a sec – ”

She’s uncoordinated enough to knock most of her bedside table onto the floor before she manages to put her hand on the condoms she keeps in the top drawer and as she moves, her thigh nudges his erection and he groans, broken sounding and _so hot_.

“Jesus fucking – ” she mutters, trailing off as she flips him over, spread out and wanting on her sheets, and rolls the condom onto his dick.

Natasha feels drunk again, as if their time together has come full circle. As if he’ll turn to her now, eyes huge and dark in the spreading morning light, and say “Look, Cassiopeia,” and she’ll look up and find stars on her ceiling.

But as she sinks down onto him she swears she can see them nonetheless, constellations mapped out behind her eyes as he thrusts into her while mouthing at her breasts. She has no name to gasp into his skin, so makes do with _fuck_ and _Jesus_ and _yeah_ as he rakes his blunt nails down her back. He comes with a grunt and a gasp and Natasha follows soon after to lie boneless and half asleep in his arms.

 

This is what Natasha loves about mornings after:

They only happen because she wants them to and they only happen on her terms.

It’s around two in the afternoon when she wakes up, still curled in the arms of a man whose name she doesn’t know. In the high midsummer sun streaming through her open curtains he looks strangely golden, his hair glinting and his skin more tanned than her own.

Something niggles in her memory, his hands wrapped around the neck of a guitar, but it’s gone as she blinks properly awake.

Natasha grins to herself; not only was the sex phenomenal, but it turns out he’s even better looking in the sunlight.  She mentally pats herself on the back while gently extracting herself from his embrace. There’s an ache between her legs as she walks to the bathroom and it just makes her grin harder.

He still hasn’t moved when she gets out of the shower, so she throws on some underwear and her tank and pours herself cereal while digging out her laptop from beneath several articles of clothing on her couch. She was halfway through a remix before she left for the club last night, and now she realises that what it needs is more sunlight and warm hands. She fiddles with equalizers and bass modulators, headphones over her ears, so utterly absorbed she doesn’t notice when he pads out of her room wearing only his jeans.

His “Mornin’” just about makes it through the bass currently curling through her headphones.

“Afternoon, actually,” she says, grinning and removing her headphones. “Hi.”

“Hi.”

It should be stupid and sappy that they just grin at each other for a moment then, but somehow it’s just comfortable, camaraderie evident in the tilt of his mouth.

“Do they mean anything?” he says eventually, gesturing to the ravens she only now realises are practically in full view through the arm holes of her tank. But fuck it, it’s her house, she doesn’t have to wear a bra if she doesn’t want to.

“Not really,” she says in a way that means _wouldn’t you like to know?_

He grins at her and it’s softer, somehow, than any of his previous grins.

“Cereal?”

“Help yourself.”

She watches shamelessly as he moves around her kitchen, opening cupboards at random until he finds everything he needs. His shoulders are beautiful and she’s slightly sad she didn’t lick those biceps when she had the chance.

The strange hazy moment between them has faded for the moment and now the silence is back, quiet and comfortable; when he leaves they’ll kiss, and it will be perfect, and they’ll never see each other again.

But instead, as they’re stood at the door after combing the entire place for all his clothes, he goes off script.

“Can I give you my number?”

Natasha raises an eyebrow. “I thought the question was supposed to be ‘can I have your number?’”

He shrugs and it’s somehow incredibly endearing, which is a stupid thing to think about a one night stand.

“This way the ball is in your court.”

She eyes him for a moment before nodding. She’s not saying no to even the vague possibility of sleeping with this man again.

He grins and kisses her – just as she thought he would – and presses a piece of paper into her hand before turning and walking off down the road.

Natasha’s halfway up the stairs to her place before she comprehends the words written on it in spiky, almost illegible handwriting.

_Clint Barton – (276) 822-2832 x_

“Are you fucking kidding me?” she mutters to herself, staring at the piece of paper in shock. “Are you _fucking kidding me?_ ”

She charges back down the stairs, only just remembering to make sure her breasts are properly covered by her tank before wrenching the door open and yelling “ _Are you fucking kidding me!?_ ” at the figure she can just see at the end of the street.

“No!” comes the reply, and she can hear the amusement in his voice; amusement laced with a slight edge of apprehension.

He rounds the corner out of sight and a man with a little boy in tow glares at her from the sidewalk. She’s still only wearing the tank and her underwear and clearly, along with the yelling and swearing, this constitutes inappropriate behaviour. He’ll probably go home to his wife and complain about ‘those people’. She slams the door shut and makes her way upstairs to drop inelegantly into the couch in front of her laptop, where she can see the bassline from Boomerang by Hawkeyes mapped out in green waves.

She just had the most fantastic sex with _Clint Barton_ , the bassist from Hawkeyes, and _she didn’t even realise_.

She digs her phone out from her record bag and plugs the number he gave her into her contacts before sending [I could sell this number, you know.]

 _[I trust you not to]_ comes the reply not a minute later.

Natasha stares at the words for a good long while before texting [Why?]

_[Why not?]_

Natasha stares blankly at her phone some more. Are famous people always this weird and confusing? She gets up and digs out a lighter from one of her kitchen drawers, holding the flame to the note and watching as it curls blackly into nothing, before picking up her phone again.

[You’re saved as WEIRD CLUB GUY in my phone. I burned the note.]

And then, because it’s true, she sends, [For the record, you’re a moron.]

 _[Probably]_ he replies. And then _[What do I call you?]_

[Natasha]

_[Oh good. Calling you Black Widow in my head was getting weird.]_

‘SHIELD presents BLACK WIDOW’ is printed in white across the top of all the club posters. Steve and Sam picked the name because Steve and Sam think they’re hilarious.

Her phone pings.

_[Speak to you soon, Natasha]_

Natasha thinks of his capable hands, of the strange comfortable silences and walking miles at night. She thinks about reverent touches and dancing like the world might end and _this way the ball is in your court_.

[Yeah] she replies [Probably]

 

This is what Natasha loves about modern technology:

Two days later she leaves Howlies, Steve’s tattoo parlour, after getting Steve to take a photo on her phone of her latest tattoo, inked on the back of her neck. It’s only small – and compared to all her other ones, the fifteen minutes it took to get this inked is laughable – but she grins as she attaches the photo to a text message.

This was probably a very stupid thing to do, she thinks.

[Look] she texts. [Cassiopeia]

A reply comes back within ten minutes.

 _[Fuck]_ and then _[We’re playing the Forum tonight. 7pm.You should come]_

It’s Tuesday. She’s not working tonight. She’s remixed three Hawkeyes songs in the past two days and come several times with his imagined hands on her body.

She texts back [Yeah, OK]


End file.
